Were "stacks of doom" really that bad?

[cman2010]

Of course, if I use tactics well, I can significantly wear down a numerically superior AI army, which can make the difference between being overrun and merely losing one or two border cities.

thats another problem the ai is so usless its easy to take them down with very few units and little to no thought.

 

[eric_]

I lost a city last night, 1 turn before I won (science). Sometimes I conquer/settle a city or group of cities on the far side of a choke point specifically as a buffer against my core empire. It's great for games where I don't want to field a huge military (am playing mostly as a builder).

And, the AI executed the attack perfectly. 4 or 5 artillery in back, a handful of infantry up near the city. I had a few mech infantry and a couple of artillery. They did expose one artillery because there was no more space within range behind their line. I personally would've held it in reserve, but whatever, a small error. Certainly not indicative of anything being 'broken', imo.

 

[Iranon]

Ah, gotcha, I see your point Iranon, although I disagree that it's broken in either regard, and especially disagree that 1upt is at odds with everything appealing about the series. In fact, I think it's more in line with the series than SoD. It ultimately allows for a lot more strategic depth, as you're not relegated to building as large an army as possible in order to avoid being overrun. This adds a lot of flexibility at various levels that play into overall strategy (type of military and how it is used, which in turn affects general production decisions, the importance of diplomacy, etc.). And, strategic depth is what it's all about.

In that respect, I find it to be far more challenging and interesting than cIV.

To me, a lot of the stuff they did away with was clutter, especially corporations and, to a lesser extent, religion. Espionage I liked OK, particularly during peaceful builder games, and sometimes it was fun to precede an invasion with a round of improvement and/or city sabotage, but it's not something I tended to rely on very much. Mostly I just set the slider high enough to keep me at parity or above with the other civs and that was it. Not really a whole lot to think about there.

I think 1upt just makes strategy more tedious.
It has the potential to make tactics a lot more rewarding though, which is a good thing. While there were plenty of options for tactical play in Civ4, the unintuitive mechanics and relatively small advantage through tight play meant many people ignored them.

I agree that BtS was quite cluttered. Balancing new features so they're attractive in niche situations but can be safely ignored entirely is an easy way to increase variety, but not the most elegant one. As such, I agree with streamlining Civ5 towards big-picture decisions rather than excessive choices and resulting optimisation problems.

The biggest points against 1upt in Civ5 is that it puts extreme stress on the rest of the game and requires awkwardness in pacing and mechanics to keep it from breaking and the utter inability of the AI to deal with it.
Superior tactics should decide battles, not allow one to wage war without casualties... I haven't played any multiplayer so I don't really know whether the problem is a result of an inferior system or AI ineptitude.
Also, for all the streamlining Civ5 forces a lot of clicks on one that aren't tied to interesting decisions. Part of the problem is an interface that concentrates more on looking slick than being efficient, part stems from not adapting parts of the game to 1upt (for example, I think I'd have done away with workers).

 

[eric_]

I think 1upt just makes strategy more tedious.

How so? I just think it makes it more variable.

While there were plenty of options for tactical play in Civ4, the unintuitive mechanics and relatively small advantage through tight play meant many people ignored them.

Yeah. Speaking of, 1upt actually strikes me as a fairly logical extension of countering units.

requires awkwardness in pacing and mechanics to keep it from breaking

Sorry, but can you somehow illustrate what you mean here? Pacing and mechanics in what sense? Empire development? Or just moving units across the map?

Also, for all the streamlining Civ5 forces a lot of clicks on one that aren't tied to interesting decisions.

I do agree with that. In particular, I find it odd that citizen management and the build queue are closed by default. It also bugs me that you have to leave the page where you add items to the build queue in order to reorder the queue or remove things from it.

I think I'd have done away with workers

Whoa...really? Pourquoi?

 

[Iranon]

How so? I just think it makes it more variable.

I conceded some interesting tactical implications. On a larger scale, planning and preparing the next tactical encounters gets bogged down in many small movement/coordination problems that are repetitive and not very interesting without an immediate threat.

Sorry, but can you somehow illustrate what you mean here? Pacing and mechanics in what sense? Empire development? Or just moving units across the map?

Production and research seem out of sync, in combination with the relative inefficiency of many later buildings this can make progress seem empty and build decisions limited.
City growth drops off rapidly, together with samey yields and plentiful per-city-bonuses there is little sense of taking a geographically unique city and shaping its development. Add an empire-wide limiter on growth rather than a trade-off, then remove ways to play around it in patches and we have a honest attempt to take the root of all problems out of the game: player choice.
Yes, the system could be broken in half before... but given that I suspected so just from reading the manual, this obvious problems should have been given attention before release rather than a crude fix afterwards.

Whoa...really? Pourquoi?

Traffic jams and apparent difficulty with worker pathing. Keep build times for improvements and allow them to be interrupted by enemy units. Could be built locally or funded globally.

 

[larries]

Nothing about your post evidences an inherent incompatibility between 1upt and the civilization series. It just highlights your inability (thus far?) to find and exploit tactical opportunities in the game. I find plenty of them arising from terrain bonuses, formations, etc. It's possible to set up a real front now, protect your flanks, etc., etc., etc. It just takes a modicum of imagination and tactical thinking. The implications even reach down to the war strategy level, as a couple of small, mobile groups are truly viable for empire defense due to tactical possibilities.

The lack of tile in is the key reason why tactical combat does not work in Civ5.

Terrain bonus exist in all previous Civ, and the existence of terrain bonus does not make it suddenly tactical. Formations? What kind of formations are you expecting? Flanking is abstracted by having a friendly unit next to your enemy. This is tactical? The choke points in Civ5 are the few points where land is surrounded by inpassable mountain. River crossing is abstracted completely. This is tactical?

Keeping your artillery units protected behind melee is not much tactics. (even in Civ4, you won't often move your siege units or cavalry alone without protection)

The main reason why one can defeat the AI with much smaller unit is completely because the AI is incompetent. Not because the player can make some brilliant tactics. Just because the AI can, once in a while, send an army that is aligned, does not mean it is still sufficient.

All the tactics that is commonly raised in Civ5 are all basic elements.

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

Staks of Doom reminds me WAY too much of Risk. For me, in my opinion, stacks were simply not fun.

All that's missing were the endless dice rolls...sixes for the win!

 

[sukha]

The lack of tile in is the key reason why tactical combat does not work in Civ5.

Terrain bonus exist in all previous Civ, and the existence of terrain bonus does not make it suddenly tactical. Formations? What kind of formations are you expecting? Flanking is abstracted by having a friendly unit next to your enemy. This is tactical? The choke points in Civ5 are the few points where land is surrounded by inpassable mountain. River crossing is abstracted completely. This is tactical?

Keeping your artillery units protected behind melee is not much tactics. (even in Civ4, you won't often move your siege units or cavalry alone without protection)

The main reason why one can defeat the AI with much smaller unit is completely because the AI is incompetent. Not because the player can make some brilliant tactics. Just because the AI can, once in a while, send an army that is aligned, does not mean it is still sufficient.

All the tactics that is commonly raised in Civ5 are all basic elements.

I agree with this

Now my personal opinion, maybe It is a bit flawed since it is based on CIV4 with ROM-AND.

I just played some ROM-AND CIV4 with my friends. Somewhere in dark ages i have such big armies, that when I imagine if I would be playing CIV5 I would quit because of all the path finding madness I would have to endure.
Playing CIV5 I have noticed more of a tendency to use all of my troops one one enemy than in CIV4, where I can be fighting on 2-3 fronts at the same time taking over/defending cities and forts.
Unless the local superpower with 25 cities goes to war with me, then I need to concentrate on that guy.

All of you are dreaming of some advanced field tactics in a Turn Based game...
Play Supcom if you want supreme tactics, Play Civilization for Empire Management.

 

[wcbarney]

I totally hated the Stacks of Doom in CIV, a game at which I really sucked! In Civ I & Civ II I was an ace -- could win any game at any time at the highest level. In those games I rather liked the AI Stacks of Doom 'cause you could kill the entire stack with one lucky shot!

So, anyway, I like CiV and am pretty good at it. If you really want realistic warfare, then I doubt if you can do much better than the Total War series.

-- Cliff in Virginia

 

[eric_]

I conceded some interesting tactical implications. On a larger scale, planning and preparing the next tactical encounters gets bogged down in many small movement/coordination problems that are repetitive and not very interesting without an immediate threat.

I realize regarding your comments about tactical implications. I was asking about the larger scale. I don't really find myself having movement and/or coordination problems. I just pick a good spot to set up a line, choke point, etc., and send off units to their place in it.

Production and research seem out of sync, in combination with the relative inefficiency of many later buildings this can make progress seem empty and build decisions limited. City growth drops off rapidly, together with samey yields and plentiful per-city-bonuses there is little sense of taking a geographically unique city and shaping its development.

I agree re: production and research prior to the last two patches, but now you can set up seriously powerful production centers and the two are much more in sync, imo. Likewise, city growth. It's *much* easier to grow large cities now. And, with the new tweaks to certain buildings (granary, stable, etc), city specialization is much more meaningful. It even sets up new decisions, as it enables you to make a grassland city with horses, cows, and/or sheep a seriously powerful production center with a stable, a windmill, forge/workship, and maybe a mine and/or a lumber mill or two.

Terrain bonus exist in all previous Civ, and the existence of terrain bonus does not make it suddenly tactical.

I didn't say terrain bonuses in and of themselves are tactical, I said 1upt makes for interesting tactical decisions, in part because of terrain bonuses. Positioning troops on hills to create choke points is much more interesting, tactically speaking, than just throwing an entire stack on a hill.

Formations? What kind of formations are you expecting?

I don't *expect* formations, I *create* them. A line of infantry with seige behind them and cavalry on the wings. A dogleg in the line to protect troops from incoming mounted units on a flanking enemy border, etc.

Flanking is abstracted by having a friendly unit next to your enemy. This is tactical?

Yes, flanking exists as an abstraction (unit upgrade), but that's not what I mean. What I mean is, bringing cavalry around a front line to attack siege units. This isn't possible when siege units are stacked with every other unit owned by your opponent.

The choke points in Civ5 are the few points where land is surrounded by inpassable mountain.

Unless you maneuver your troops to create some of your own. But, the terrain-based choke points make for some very interesting decisions, too.

River crossing is abstracted completely. This is tactical?

This is new? What, do you want your troops to spend a few turns building a makeshift bridge or a bunch of rafts? Or, maybe you meant crossing oceans? If so, yes, it's very abstracted now, but I'm OK with it. *All* logistics are heavily abstracted (more like, omitted) in this game, and I'm OK with ocean crossing going that route, too.

Anyway, all in all, it sounds like you think tactics just kinda happen, when in reality, they requires forethought and creativity.

All of you are dreaming of some advanced field tactics in a Turn Based game...
Play Supcom if you want supreme tactics, Play Civilization for Empire Management.

I'm not dreaming of anything. I'm enjoying the game within its own scope. I don't see anyone claiming that ciV is a tactics modeler of the highest order, just that tactics actually have a role now, and that makes things more interesting, imo.

 

[sukha]

I'm not dreaming of anything. I'm enjoying the game within its own scope. I don't see anyone claiming that ciV is a tactics modeler of the highest order, just that tactics actually have a role now, and that makes things more interesting, imo.

I just don't feel like what you call tactics in CIV5 outweigh the tedious process of using it.

Empire Leaders don't make the flanking decisions on the battlefield, they can make decisions about their armies moving here and there, but ultimately its Generals who lead their troops to battle and thats some other game we are talking about.


I was about to write a huge wall of text explaining how complicated the things would have to get to make the combat actually possible on world map, but I think you already know that. I can list some for the sake of argument.
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Map should get huge, cities should take more than 1 hex... more like 5
Cavalry should get special rights to retreat from melee units since there is no way in hell swordsmen can catch up to cavalry.... (you can already smell the complexity of issues arising here, what if cavalry is busy fighting some other unit, what if, what if....)

Reaction turns would have to get implemented, nothing is static in real life. Ever occurred to you that people don't take turns attacking each other? (think jagged alliance series or S2)

I wont even start on more modern units, things would just get too complicated and time consuming.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think the emphasis of this game is meant to be Empire Building, Diplomacy and Military Domination not insane micro/macro ala SC2 just for slow people....
You cannot deny that moving single units in large quantities across the map is pain in the ass.

P.S. The same thing that makes things interesting for you somehow manages to annoy me in this particular game and having the game shallow as it is, it just adds to the insult.


The wall of text you just red was my personal opinion and nothing more, no offence was intended to any parties involved

 

[DavidPBacon]

What I understand about people who doesn't like stacks is that they want to be a grand general instead of a grand leader. Wars in Civ should be about the clash of nations and their production and logistics capabilities, not about Nopoleon against Wellington.

Civ is a game looselly based on history trying to emulute the construction of an empire. In history, empires have a tendency to get bigger with time and to engulf smaller states. When they fall, is usually because of internal instabillities.

That's why stacks make sense in civ, because they allow you to test your nation war machine. BTW, terrain does matter in the previous Civs, and a battle wasn't about getting the biggest stack possible clashing it against the other stack. This is dumb strategy. You will likelly lose too many units doing this. Winning a war against a bigger and more advanced enemy in Civ IV demands strategy and clever army placement and it's perfectly possible in difficulties bellow King.

In 1 upt, you break the logic of war, since production stops to matter. Is now better to invest in some good troops then to create a big army. You became Napo and a 3 cities civ can defeat a 20 cities one. This is changing the logic of civ completely, making it a tatical war game instead of a empire building on.

I personally reckon the Call to power solution would be the best for civ, since it solves some of the complaints about stacks but still allow the "Clash fo Nations" sense that is lost in Civ V.

 

[eric_]

I just don't feel like what you call tactics in CIV5 outweigh the tedious process of using it.

I mean, that's cool. I'm not intending to be prescriptive here, I'm just explaining why I enjoy 1upt so much more than SoDs.

Empire Leaders don't make the flanking decisions on the battlefield, they can make decisions about their armies moving here and there, but ultimately its Generals who lead their troops to battle and thats some other game we are talking about.

Right. Likewise, emperors don't decide which worker should head out to the field to set up a farm. But, I like that 'many hats' aspect of this series.

You cannot deny that moving single units in large quantities across the map is pain in the ass.

I do deny that. In fact, I can't fathom why people find it so annoying. I love configuring and reconfiguring troop formations as I deal with one city, group of enemy units, set of terrain features, etc. after another

Cavalry should get special rights to retreat from melee units since there is no way in hell swordsmen can catch up to cavalry....

Er, cavalry *can* retreat from melee, as they can move after attacking if you leave them with movement points.

Ever occurred to you that people don't take turns attacking each other?

Yes, of course. Stacks didn't eliminate this inconsistency with reality. And, this is in part what I mean by "enjoy it within its own scope". It's a *turn-based* strategy game.

I am honestly baffled that people think 1upt is appreciably more of an abstraction than were stacks.

In 1 upt, you break the logic of war, since production stops to matter. Is now better to invest in some good troops then to create a big army. You became Napo and a 3 cities civ can defeat a 20 cities one. This is changing the logic of civ completely, making it a tatical war game instead of a empire building on.

Completely disagree. I am a builder first. Even in domination efforts I usually have a long period of building up my empire before going on a rampage. But, *when* I war, I love the increased focus on tactics that, imo, arises from 1upt.

 

[DavidPBacon]

Completely disagree. I am a builder first. Even in domination efforts I usually have a long period of building up my empire before going on a rampage. But, *when* I war, I love the increased focus on tactics that, imo, arises from 1upt.

You do that because yoou force youself to, not because the game mechanics requires. I don't know how the AI is after the lastest patch, but I bet you don't need to replace many units after you start a war, wich can last over more than 20 turns easily. 20 turns were you don't need to build more than a handful of replacements during a major war. Really? In a empire building game?

Mind you, I'm not disputing your pleasure with the system, is just that it doesn't fit what civ was all about till IV. This has being said over and over. They could've lauched a Civ Tatics or something, but a civ sequel? 1 upt doesn't fit in. IMO

 

[sukha]

You do that because yoou force youself to, not because the game mechanics requires. I don't know how the AI is after the lastest patch, but I bet you don't need to replace many units after you start a war, wich can last over more than 20 turns easily. 20 turns were you don't need to build more than a handful of replacements during a major war. Really? In a empire building game?

Mind you, I'm not disputing your pleasure with the system, is just that it doesn't fit what civ was all about till IV. This has being said over and over. They could've lauched a Civ Tatics or something, but a civ sequel? 1 upt doesn't fit in. IMO

I agree...
I mean the goddamn mechanic has to at least make some sense, to me it seems more probable that I as an Emperor send one big army. And whatever tactical maneuvers my general applied in that battle is non of my concern... What concerns me is the outcome. I am sitting with the bigger picture here after all, not some puny soldiers with their tactics and whatnot

 

[dexters]

For better or worse, I am fine with 1UPT.

Civ4 used a lot of limits, game rule tweaks etc. to soften the SOD The underlying SOD system was still flawed. The solution here is not to slag on 1UPT on its first outing but to improve it. Firaxis had essentially 2 games, Civ3/Civ4 to perfect that style of play. Civ4 benefited immesely from it, but ultimately it was still about who had a bigger stack.

The combat in Civ5 is more interesting on a grand strategic level because the use of 1UPT requires interesting use of opening salvos to take cities. The nuke + rush strategy is one I've seen the AI use. Or Air fleet bombing rush.

Lacking that, taking of cities can become long slogged out affairs where the AI encircle a city and simply strangle it until it can bring enough bombardment to bear.

scenarios like that were either 'human only' in previous civ games (thinking of the overpowered bombard units in the hands of human players) or not possible.

I really dislike the opinion that Civ5 must be absolutely perfect or it proves Civ4's Stacking system was superior. That's really not the way I see it at all.

I want 1UPT refined for at least one more game. I can and will get better, just as Firaxis made gameplay improvements to soften out the harsh edges of SOD in the transition from Civ3 to 4.

 

[dexters]

With unit stacking, I never did appreciate that warfare in later stages was just flinging huge stacks at other stacks or at cities. It's telling they had to implement suicide siege in Civ 4, considering how nice it must be to just build a huge stack of artillery and bring some protection and just bomb the enemy into submission.

Suicide seige units was one such 'game mechanic'to soften the SOD.

In Civ3, a player can accumulate seige units literally from the time they can build them and get 100+ artillery of doom by the industrial era.

It takes a long time to play turns, but having 100+ bombard units was essentially an unbeatable force in human hands, not to mention the AI simply could not use artillery AT ALL in Civ3.

Suicide artillery forced players to replenish their units, and culls their bombard unit count. That was the biggest fix to the SOD.

Civ5's mechanic actually actively forces the AI to build artillery even if they don't often deploy them properly, the THREAT of enemy artillery is still real and defensively, they are used well. The AI do establish crossfires making early invasions tricky as they can bomb your units down. I was once pinned against the greeks with my infantry unable to make good headway because their tightly packed cities with an artillery inside covered each other and they made my advance costly. This went for for 50+ turns, until I could get better technology and more units to simply overwhelm them.

This is the kind of AI action not possible until Civ5.

Not speaking to your comment, but those merely complaining about 'not replacing units' because of 1UPT (play on a higher difficulty level) is not a good argument to me.

 

[eric_]

You do that because yoou force youself to, not because the game mechanics requires.

Force myself to? No, I do it because that's how I like to play. That said, even if you're not a builder, the game DOES require that you build a strong empire to win. It's absurd suggest otherwise. Go neglect your empire and see how far your military campaign gets.

As for replenishing units, it depends on the war, but during long campaigns where I take on a rival with a strong military, I have to produce a fairly steady stream of replacements.

 

[Mylon]

I suspect 1UPT may work out better if cities weren't so large relative to the scale. But if you make the city radius any bigger the value of individual tiles seems to go down further.

 

[Thormodr]

Graphics are at the root of the problem.

As mentioned before, 1UPT would be better if the scale was much bigger. If cities were a few hexes big and you had a lot more room to maneuver that would open things up a lot more. A lot less traffic jams for starters.

The problem is, the designers are in love with pretty graphics as they feel that you need to have those in order to lure in casuals/noobs. That makes the idea of huge maps basically impossible as it would be too taxing on almost all people's computers.

This also pretty well precludes having multiple leaders to choose from per Civ as you they are supposedly relying on facial expressions and speech to help you gauge how the AI feels about you.

The premise for 1UPT isn't horrible in of itself but it just doesn't work for a game like Civ being at the scale that it is. They should focus much more on empire building as they did in previous iterations of the game. That or scale back the graphics somewhat so you can have huge + sized maps.